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The scene that stuck out for me is when the tries to talk to Marcus Thames and Gary Sheffield before a mid-season game, and is shocked that they are too focused on preparing to play to talk to him. This comes right after a monologue he gives about how he is 100% certain players play harder knowing that they are on people's fantasy teams.

It was a lot like a scene in a pretty crummy documentary I saw a few months ago about these young filmmakers trying to track down John Hughes. One of them was convinced that despite the fact Hughes had withdrawn from public life for years, Hughes would be eager to talk to him because...gosh darn it, I like his movies! (As if the reason Hughes hadn't given interviews in the past several years was that no one likes his movies.)

There's a delusional arrogance to putting yourself in the centre of your documentary (don't know if that's accurate in Fantasyland, the guy they are following isn't the filmmaker I don't think, right?). I just don't get why that seems like such a popular way to do documentaries these days. That fellow who did that Simpsons documentary a few months ago really took the cake. I mean, you could make a pretty interesting documentary about the cultural impact of the Simpsons, but instead I found I was just following around some guy I didn't care about.

i thought the more telling scene was when he turned up at Shandler's house...I was just like, wow, this guy has no sense of acceptable social behaviour. He seems like the guy you make a trade with in your fantasy league just to shut him up. Perhaps the Tout Wars guys should've screened a little more carefully and 'put a Milo' on this dude, who was a pain to watch on screen. I loved the book but didn't enjoy the movie.

Why is it that the documentaries-about-obsessive-nerds genre has been so popular these last few years? It started with Spellbound, and continued on through Word Wars, Wordplay, The King of Kong, and now Fantasyland. Did I forget anything?

Why is it that the documentaries-about-obsessive-nerds genre has been so popular these last few years?

I don't think it's necessarily obsessive nerds, just obsessive people in general. Look at Man On Wire, Collapse, Grizzly Man, etc. Obsessives make good documentary subjects because they are different than ordinary people. An ordinary person might ride the elevator to the top of the World Trade Center, think it's a shame that oil is so necessary and think bears are cute. Only obsessives tightrope walk 1,360 feet in the air, devote their lives to describing a future world-without-oil and go live with wild animals.

I just don't get why that seems like such a popular way to do documentaries these days. That fellow who did that Simpsons documentary a few months ago really took the cake. I mean, you could make a pretty interesting documentary about the cultural impact of the Simpsons, but instead I found I was just following around some guy I didn't care about.

If it's the one I think you mean, "that guy" was Morgan Spurlock, who also did "Super Size Me". So in his case, he's just going with what he knows.

Why is it that the documentaries-about-obsessive-nerds genre has been so popular these last few years?

In movies, why does the disproportionately-hot lady pick the sweet-but-withdrawn guy in the end, instead of the charismatic jerk? It's wish fulfillment for the audience.

Nerds have money, and nerds like seeing movies about other nerds that portray those nerds in a positive light, because they're able to project themselves and their own nerdery into the nerds on screen.

This is surprisingly true. A lot of my friends play D&D;fairly regularly, among other things, and the amount of money they drop on nerd products is incredible. You can never go wrong over-estimating how much a nerd is willing to part with for some new nerd product you create.

I must be a bad nerd, because I rarely spend money on my baseball nerd lifestyle. I mean, sure I pursue it at the expense of my relationships, jobs, direction in life, and free time...but money? Never!

I must be a bad nerd, because I rarely spend money on my baseball nerd lifestyle. I mean, sure I pursue it at the expense of my relationships, jobs, direction in life, and free time...but money? Never!

There's a delusional arrogance to putting yourself in the centre of your documentary (don't know if that's accurate in Fantasyland, the guy they are following isn't the filmmaker I don't think, right?). I just don't get why that seems like such a popular way to do documentaries these days.

Meh. I actually think that Michael Moore is at his best when he is behind the camera, and he steps back and lets other people tell their stories. The most powerful scenes in his movies are told from the perspective of people that are directly impacted by the subject of his films. He's excellent at putting a human face on problems, and show that they're not just a matter for idle debate.

When he puts himself in front of the camera to do stupid publicity stunts, or starts going off on his paranoid conspiracy theories, his movies fall apart. The more he talks, the more he comes across as a rambling idiot.

[quoteMeh. I actually think that Michael Moore is at his best when he is behind the camera, and he steps back and lets other people tell their stories.]

He's the worst thing in all his movies.

But the "obsessive nerds" documentary is a little different from what Moore does. It's not like Moore spends an entire movie following one person or group of obsessed people, though that might be an interesting next step for him, because he really is very adept at humanizing people who do and think strange things and placing them in a context that fits in with his big picture.

Meh. I actually think that Michael Moore is at his best when he is behind the camera, and he steps back and lets other people tell their stories. The most powerful scenes in his movies are told from the perspective of people that are directly impacted by the subject of his films. He's excellent at putting a human face on problems, and show that they're not just a matter for idle debate.

When he puts himself in front of the camera to do stupid publicity stunts, or starts going off on his paranoid conspiracy theories, his movies fall apart. The more he talks, the more he comes across as a rambling idiot.

I agree, but Moore isn't necessarily going to be objective about what works and doesn't work in his own movies, especially when the movie as a whole is well-received. If he gets good reviews and makes money, then as far as he's concerned he did something right. Why mess with a good thing? And people who are slavishly copying his formula aren't going to take time to think about whether individual parts of it work or not - they're just going to rip and run.

I guess part of it is about setting up Michael Moore as a brand, too. I mean, Errol Morris makes great documentaries, but how many people would recognize him if he walked up and punched them in the face? When was the last time you saw Errol Morris on TV, or paid to see an Errol Morris movie in a metroplex?

... actually some Googling indicates that there are several such documentaries in the works, though they need better titles. One is called I Came to Game!

It's not uncommon at the tournaments I go to to see someone with a camera recording footage, though I imagine it's usually for a college class or something. I'm aware of I Came To Game's existence, and I imagine it will have a decent amount of focus on Dave Williams given that he's best known for something outside of Magic.

I am not much of a fan of military history, but the Amazon reviews suggest this covers a much wider ground than naval improvements.

It does. The follow-up book (Castles of Steel) is pretty much purely a military history, but Dreadnought just uses the naval arms race as an organizing principle of the book, which is more about the diplomatic and personal side of years leading up to the war.

The thing to remember with Michael Moore is that before him documentaries were largely anonymous. The directors did their interviews, had actors read narration, and kept things pretty dry and impersonal. There's a reason they were called "documentaries" and not "commentaries". What Moore did that made him so popular is personally relate to the audience. Regardless of the quality of his documentaries, or whether people have grown tired of his schtick now after having seen it multiple times, it was originally perceived as being incredibly innovative.

As for the plethora of documentaries covering obsessives and weird people, that's just part of our cultural need to point and laugh at those inferior to us. One series that comes to mind is "Stephen Fry in America", which is often a very interesting look at America from the POV of a Briton. But even though Fry did the show with the express purpose not to "sneer at the Americans", nonetheless his show contained a meetings with a Jewish Voodoo priestess, people living in an underground missile base, ecohouse dwellers, and Bigfoot believers, and visits the Transcendental Meditation headquarters in Iowa.

The thing to remember with Michael Moore is that before him documentaries were largely anonymous. The directors did their interviews, had actors read narration, and kept things pretty dry and impersonal. There's a reason they were called "documentaries" and not "commentaries". What Moore did that made him so popular is personally relate to the audience. Regardless of the quality of his documentaries, or whether people have grown tired of his schtick now after having seen it multiple times, it was originally perceived as being incredibly innovative.

The format worked well with Roger & Me, because (1) at that point, Moore could still pass himself off as "everyman", and (2) the fate of Flint, MI had a direct impact on his life, and the lives of people he knew. It was a very personal project, and you could see that coming through througout the film.

When he tries to copy that format in other films, he gets diminishing returns out of it, until now he's basically a caricature of himself.